Pamela Nolan Young, director for academic diversity and inclusion at the University of Notre Dame, and Dr. Karla J.Bellinger, associate director of the John M. Martin Program in Homiletics and Liturgics at the University of Notre Dame, have prepared two facilitated conversations for white clergy in our diocese focused on these four objectives:
Know and understand...systemic racism, white supremacy and the function of white privilege, as the dominant culture;
Be able to discuss and reflect on one's own experience of racism, its connections to individual and corporate history;
Be able to reflect on what it means to be complicit in racism and white supremacy and;
Be equipped to lead conversations in our faith communities on these topics.
This initiative is one part of the larger work our Becoming Beloved Community Commission. I believe as clergy leaders, we need to engage in these conversations and become equipped to lead these conversations among the people we serve, especially the white people in our faith communities.
We hope to be able to meet in person..safely...hoping the COVID 19 cases in our counties begin to decline.
The day will begin at 10 a.m. and end at 3 p.m. EDT. As soon as we have more specifics about the place, I will let you know.
Thank you for making these conversations a priority.
Every blessing,
Doug
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Douglas E. Sparks
VIII Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana